For a mail order catalog of the new Royal Crown Derby
and Royal Worcester miniatures, contact: Govier's of Sidmouth 55 High
Street Sidmouth Devon EX10 SLN England 44-1395-513419 44-1395-577888
(fax)

Stokesay Ware's
Sovereign Blue and Willow pattern, displayed on a dresser back by
Karen

Toy
china, always highly collectible and still in great demand today, is available
to American collectors.

Think of traditional
English tea services and delicate dinner services and the names of famous fine
china manufacturers like Wedgwood, Spode, Coalport, Royal Doulton, Crown Derby,
Royal Worcester and Minton are likely come to mind.

Over the last 200 years, these same English china manufacturers
also made small versions of their fine china. This 'toy china', so valued by
collectors today, is increasingly hard to find. Few of the manufacturers still
produce miniature-size china, so antique dealers specializing in this field
find their tiny cups and saucers, jugs, coffee and tea pots in great demand.

One such dealer, Gary Sirett, sells these
types of miniature china on Saturdays in Portobello Road, home of London's vast
antiques market. The shelves in his shop windows display row upon row of tiny
cups (1 Inch high) with their saucers. Like most early English toy china, these
pieces are not quite as small as 1 " scale. Why, then, were they
made?

Were they samples for travelling
salesmen to carry? Or, were they perhaps used by young girls playing with dolls
at pretend tea parties? The curator of the Spode Museum, at the factory in
Stoke-on-Trent in the northwest of England, believes that these pieces, so
treasured by today's collectors, always were intended for collectors to display
in cabinets.

With the high demand and limited
availability of fine English miniature china, where do dealers like Gary find
this china that brings him prices ranging from £20 to £1,200 ($32
to $1,900)? While he regularly travels to the United States on buying trips to
bring back previously exported English miniatures, sometimes he is still lucky
back home in England. Recently Gary had a call from an English collector who
was moving and wanted to sell his collection. This rather fortuitous collection
turned out to contain 250 superb pieces of antique miniature china collected
over many years.

While dealers like Gary are
constantly searching for more examples of original miniature china, other
people like Karen Griffiths are hard at work producing dollhouse-scale china
based on the early designs. Karen and her partner, Peter Armstrong, run
Stokesay Ware of London. Their dollhouse range of miniature china includes
dinner services in fine bone china, vases and decorative plates, kitchenware in
terra-cotta, stoneware and white earthenware and a bedroom service including
jug with basin, foot bath, bidet and potty (an essential item prior to the
invention of flushing toilets).

SPODE
DEJEUNER Paris Toy China on a tray are pieces treasured by today's collectors.
Larger than dollhouse scale, they were originally intended for
display.